


It’s My Party…

by LazyGeisha



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Birthday, Fluff, M/M, Swearing, not much here to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 15:11:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17851961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazyGeisha/pseuds/LazyGeisha
Summary: For once Levi wants to bethat guy...





	It’s My Party…

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't going to write another one, I really wasn't. I didn't sleep one night and this happened. 
> 
> I'm horrible at editing, so as with all the fics I write, I try and catch everything I can, but the mistakes or leftout words sometimes escape me. I don't use a beta reader, it's all me. And sometimes I'll read it over an realise I've overused a word and go back and change it, even if it's been posted for a week. I do this just to keep you curious, keep you coming back for changes. Not because I'm an idiot that can't catch these things before I show it to all of you. Nope.

Levi had never been so excited for a birthday in his life, even the year he swore he was getting the complete set of “The Lord of the Rings” figures from his mom, now displayed on a shelf in the bedroom. The thing was, the birthday he was excited about wasn’t _his_. The birthday making him giddy belonged to his boyfriend.

By luck or chance, their birthdays were three weeks apart; first his, then Nico’s. They’d been together for seven months, meaning this was the first birthday he’d ever planned for someone other than his mother. He loved his mother, was grateful to her for everything but it was _not_ the same as planning the first birthday as a couple for the person he was pretty damn sure was the love of his life. His soulmate, if he could be cheesy for a moment.

They’d been thrilled when it had been announced that _Book of Mormon_ – with the original Broadway cast – was slated to play for only a month long run, both of them had been dying to see it; Levi for the first time, Nico for a second. Levi’d managed to score tickets for his boyfriend's birthday, eventually having to call in a favour from a friend of Casey’s who “knew a guy who knew a guy” in the box office. Both the e-tickets and a reservation confirmation for the new restaurant they’d also be “dying” to try were on his phone, in his email. The restaurant reservation required help from Doctor Webber. The owner was a former patient who’d guaranteed a table whenever it was wanted, and surgery chat being like it was, Webber offered while he and Levi had their hands on a hiatal hernia.

Everything was set, everything was perfect. He was ready.

~~~

This was not how he thought it was gonna go, it was just… not supposed to be like this.

They dined in the restaurant – the perfect table, set with candles and placed in a discreet corner – they’d watched _Book of Mormon._ The problem was, it wasn’t _Nico’s_ birthday night, it was _his_.

His boyfriend had been vibrating with excitement in the car, practically beaming with smugness when he’d refused to tell Levi where they were going. “You’ll love it, trust me!” He may have thrown up a little in his mouth when they’d arrive at their destination and been shown to their table. He tried so hard to be excited, to look pleased with the meal, but his smile felt brittle. Nico said nothing, so maybe he wasn’t doing too badly faking it, he just had to get past dinner and then it would be fine. They could still use his reservation in three weeks, that wouldn’t be weird. He perked up a bit toward the end of dinner, mentally shrugging it off, chalking it up to bad luck.

He had a much harder time when Nico had the driver drop them off in front of the theatre and whispered “Surprise!” in his ear. “You’ve never seen it so I thought it would be the perfect birthday gift!” _Book of_ fucking _Mormon_ tickets.

Because this was his fate, right? Everything had to balance out cosmically somehow in the end. Get a hot boyfriend, and maybe your birthday idea - down to the last detail - to show your boyfriend how much you love him gets swiped by said boyfriend. That’s apparently a thing. _Fuck._

Maybe he’d not been as enthusiastic as he should have been during the performance, maybe not as into it as he might’ve if he hadn’t planned the whole exact thing for _three weeks later_. Based on the looks Nico sometimes gave him when he didn’t react to something on stage, he wasn’t doing a great job hiding his feelings. To give him credit, Levi did occasionally forget about this situation and get into a scene, but a few minutes later it’d all come back and he’d feel like shit again. His boyfriend had even scored better seats than he did, damn it. Honestly, he just wanted to go home and sulk.

When the curtain had fallen, Nico suggested they go home and have Levi’s birthday cake. The last thing he wanted was cake, he wanted to stand in a hot shower so he could cry in peace like any other adult would do, but he knew in order for this night to end he’d have to eat cake. And the way things were going, it would probably be the same cake he’d ordered for Nico.

~~~

They’d unlocked the apartment door, hung their coats up and toed off their shoes. Instead of heading to the kitchen, though, Nico took five steps into the living area whirled around and snapped “You get no cake until you tell what the hell happened tonight!” He threw his arms wide as he fairly barked, “I thought you’d be happy tonight, with the restaurant and the theatre! We’ve been wanting to do both, so I thought it was perfect for your birthday!”

“Nothing’s wrong! Everything’s perfect, Nico!” He laughed a little sadly as he continued, “Perfect Nico.”

“What the hell’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. I’m just tired. Can we-”

“Levi!”

“It means nothing!”

“Levi Schmitt!”

“It. Means. Nothing. Nico.” Barely suppressed sarcasm laced his reply.

The next words floored him. _“Levi Whatever Your Middle Name Is Schmitt! Tell me what that means!”_

“Wait, what? ‘ _Levi Whatever Your Middle Name Is Schmitt!_ ’?? You don’t know my middle name?” Grateful for the diversion, he latched onto this with both hands. “Seven months of being together, two months of _living_ together and you don’t know my middle name?!?”

“It’s rarely come up in conversation.” He watched his boyfriend’s skin flush. “Besides I doubt you know mine.”

“You have two, one Italian and one Korean, both after relatives and neither of which you like. And that hurts your grandmothers’ feelings, by the way.” The shocked expression in front of him had Levi rolling his eyes. “Your grandmothers talk, Nico.”

In what seemed like frustration, Nico ran a hand through his hair. “Look, this is not about your middle name right now, what the hell was going on tonight? I thought… I thought you’d be happy.”

“I am happy!”

“Honey, _this_ is not you doing ‘happy’. This is you _faking_ ‘happy’. Tell me.”

“No.” He plonked down on the couch, feeling a serious case of pouts coming on.

“Levi…” Usually when his boyfriend used that voice it sent pleasurable shivers down his spine, tonight it just brought on tears of frustration. “Are you- are you crying? Honey?”

“Hey, as the song goes, ‘it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to’…”

“Yeah, but the next line is ‘You would cry too if it happened to you’.” He grabbed at Levi’s hand. “What happened?”

Sighing, Levi wiped his eyes and dug out his phone. He found what he was looking for and showed it to Nico. “Ahhh…” He handed the phone back, and pulling his boyfriend off the couch, cupped Levi’s face with gentle hands. Stroking thumbs softly over his reddened cheeks he murmured, “I am so sorry, love, I had no idea you planned all this for my birthday too. I just wanted to make you happy, Levi.”

He touched his forehead against Nico’s, dropping his eyes. “You did. I just… I just, for once, wanted to be _that guy_ , you know?”

“What guy?” He pulled away slightly and quirked a brow at those words.

“The _Grand Romantic Gestures Guy_ , Nico.” He lifted his gaze to meet his boyfriend’s eyes. “I wanted to be the guy that for once did the big romantic thing to show you how much I love you.” Pulling away, he waved around the room. “When you asked me to move in, you engraved the key with hearts and stuck it in a jewelry box, had a candlelight dinner for me here with white roses and balloons!” He wiped his hands over his face in defeat. “When you asked me out for a real date, you brought me a figure of my favourite DnD dragon! I can’t compete with that, Nico! You’re fireworks and a brass band! I’m… I’m a sparkler and a kazoo.”

“Hey!” Again he cradled Levi’s jaw in his large hands, forcing him to meet his eyes. “There’s no competition, Levi. You win. You win _every day_.” His brushed his lips softly against the warm ones a hair’s breadth away. “Everything you do shows me how much you love me.” Another soft kiss. “Do you remember when you first came over and I wasn’t quite ready so I told you to help yourself to water from the fridge? You freaked out that my fridge only had beer, mustard and bottled water so you dragged me to the grocery store for an hour so you could stock my fridge and cabinets with food so I, and ooooh I _will_ quote you, ‘wouldn’t die of either malnutrition or scurvy’.” A third kiss followed. “We missed the movie you really wanted to see and wound up cooking me the best meatloaf I have ever had.” He drew Levi in for a longer, more thorough kiss. “You bring me coffee and my favourite bagel during my shifts. The first time you met my whole family you drank scotch with my father - and you _hate_ scotch – you let my cousin put your hair in small ponytails and do your nail polish-”

“She’s six, Nico, I’m not going to say no.”

“You offered to break my sister’s ex-boyfriend’s legs if he so much as looked at her again after cheating on her.” He rested his head on his boyfriend’s forehead. “You learned some Italian and some Korean so you could speak to my grandparents.”

Levi snorted. “I asked your grandmother if she ‘licked cats’ instead of ‘liked cats’. Not my best moment!”

“Yeah, but I haven’t seen my grandfather laugh so hard in years, we thought he was gonna have a heart attack.” Chuckling at the memory, Nico kissed his boyfriend gently. “My grandmothers have stated publicly both that if they were forty years younger and you were straight, they’d fight to marry you. And that if we break up – oh, if I broke up with you I’m, to quote them, ‘an idiot’ – they’re tossing me aside and adopting you as their grandchild.” He gently pulled Levi’s hair. “Even Linc is halfway in love with you. You spent the day painting his apartment with him when I was working and now he keeps asking me to ask you to teach him to DnD! Not gonna happen…”

Nico squeezed his boyfriend tightly as if trying to force his love into him. “Every day you show me you love me, Levi. For god’s sake, I bought a ring for you two months after we started dating because I couldn’t stand the thought that you might go off and leave me! I keep it in my dress pants.” Levi went stiff for a moment. “Linc convinced me that it would be stupid to propose after two months, but now I’m wondering if he had a different reason…”

Pulling halfway out of Nico’s arms, he smacked him on the shoulder. “Well you can just keep it in your pants, mister! Because _I_ have a ring too!” He blushed, colour rising like a wave up his throat to paint his cheeks pink. “I bought it after Natasha died and I’m _not_ telling you where I keep it.” His hand slid up behind Nico’s neck, laced his fingers and stroked his thumbs over his ears. “It’s not the time, but _I_ will be the one proposing, got it? Don’t you go doing something wildly romantic, alright! This one is for me.”

Nico surged forward and caught Levi’s mouth in a kiss so heated it left both panting like puppies after a run. “But, Levi...” A soft, slow touch of lips made Levi’s toes curl. “What if you forget?” A quick nip on his jaw left him aching for more. “What if I can’t wait any longer and neeeeeeed to propose?” He drew the word ‘need’ out in such a way that his boyfriend felt it in the center of his being.

“Then...” His voice cracked on the word. “Do it as unromantically as possible. No grand gestures. Do it while we’re brushing our teeth or I’m handing you a cabbage in the grocery store.”

“So, let me get this straight,” Nico quirked the side of his mouth in a half smile. “I can’t do something like suture a patient in the shape of a proposal?”

“No, too romantic!”

“How about if I stick the ring in a patient during surgery and when you find it I drop to my knees and propose?”

“No! And eew?” Levi pulled away and grabbed his coat. “I want ice cream and then makeup sex.”

“What ‘makeup sex’? Did we have a fight??”

Whirling around to face Nico, Levi pointed a finger at him. “There are still ninety minutes left in my birthday, I claim two scoops in a waffle cone and makeup sex, damn it!”

Raising his hands in defeat, his boyfriend quickly agreed. Grabbing his coat and following him out the door, he teased, “So what _is_ your middle name?”


End file.
